EDUCATION
Chicago Public Schools (“CPS”) – we currently have less than 25% of our CPS students reading at grade level, and about 10% of our students doing math at grade level, at an investment of about $30,000 per student per year-significantly more than most private and parochial schools. When my son went to Lane Tech, it had morphed into a college preparatory school. Guys my age that went to Lane, learned foundry, auto body and mechanics, carpentry, plumbing etc. According to Mike Rowe from “Dirty Jobs” and “The Deadliest Catch”, learn how to weld and you will never make less than $100,000.00 per year. Not only is reading and financial literacy a must have for our kids, our trade education programs must be reinstated. Let’s reemphasize these programs that lead to high- demand, well paying jobs.
PUBLIC SAFETY
If we have educated kids, there will be demand for them in the workplace, and not on the street corner. My son went to Western Illinois, the fourth best program in the country for law enforcement. He graduated in 2020, with intentions of joining the Chicago Police Department. This is of course is when the leadership of Chicago and the State began the defund the police campaign which led to the passage of the SAFE T ACT. That law increased violent crime by 33% and created a 1000 vacant Chicago Police positions. It needs to be repealed immediately! WE MUST BACK THE BLUE! Our legislators recently passed a law in which criminals can no longer be called “offenders” they now must be called “justice impacted individuals”, ridiculous. We need to initiate a virtuous cycle of education, crime-deterrence and opportunity for our kids.
TAXES
Illinois has nearly 7000 government units, those are departments, agencies and the like as the 5th largest state. Texas, the 2nd largest state has 1800 less. The appetite to keep expanding Illinois’ government is insatiable. What’s truly sad, is the Governor can’t tell you how many people work for the state, best guess is 145,000. We have too many part-time jobs that pay over $80,000.00 per year. We have nine jobs in Chicago that pay $80,000 per year, benefits, pensions, etc. for a total of 69 HOURS OF WORK FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR!
How do we get one of those? In 2021, while people were suffering from COVID, losing family members, jobs, businesses, etc., the Illinois General Assembly, who did not lose a single paycheck, gave themselves a 18% raise, unconscionable! That law needs to be repealed immediately. I think most people are like me, you don’t mind paying, as long as you are getting your money’s worth. 2.1 million people have left since 2000, hundreds of thousands over the last four years. The more people that leave, for those of us that stay, we are getting a larger slice of the debt pie, each taxpayer has $85,000.00 of debt around their neck. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
IMMIGRATION
We are a nation of immigrants. Franz and Ingeburg, my parents, came over in the 1950’s. Matter of fact, on the block I grew up on, if your parents weren’t immigrants, then your grandparents were - a fairly typical Chicago story. Greek Town, Little Italy, Chinatown, Ukrainian Village, Pilsen - our cultural wealth should be embraced and celebrated.
Whatever immigration policy we settle on has to be economically sustainable, meaning we have a defined budget, and must have secure borders, so we know who’s coming into our country. Also, how do we deal with the millions of people who have followed the traditional and legal way who have been patiently waiting as we have allowed millions of undocumented people who are draining resources meant for other purposes. Mayor Johnson has allocated approximately $150 million for undocumented immigrants in Chicago’s 2024 budget, so over 12 million a month. We should understand how this budget will be funded and if it is the highest and best use of these funds. We should be able to fund immigration without raising taxes while admitting as many folks as we can, in an economically sustainable way, so that we can to do so well into the future. We should be compassionate, smart, economically disciplined as we create a sustainable bright future for CURRENT and new Americans.